There are many reasons why I
shouldn’t have the information I have about Papa John Schnatter,
and only one reason that I do. The reasons why not are plentiful. I
am not, for instance, a fan of his pizza, and have been critical of
it in the past—I have said, on the record and in many instances to
people who didn’t even ask what I thought of Papa John’s, that I
think Papa John’s pizza “tastes like being in an airport feels” and
“is basically an industrial accident covered with seven pounds of
shredded cheese.”

These critiques, I am aware, are not necessarily unique. What
put me on Schnatter’s enemies list, finally, were two things. The
first was my attempt to write an unauthorized musical about him
called Papa John: Turn Off The Dark. The second, in what I can now admit was a
spiteful response to his legal team’s defeat of that project (for
which I’d already secured hundreds of thousands of dollars in
financing, and the songwriting cooperation of Spandau Ballet’s Gary
and Martin Kemp), was my attempt to bring Schnatter to trial at the
International Criminal Court for “the weaponization of yeast,”
“crimes against dairy” and “that fucking garlic dipping sauce,
which just gets more alarming the more you look at it and anyway
tastes less like garlic than it does hangover-mouth.” The suit,
justifiably, didn’t go very far, and led only to a reprimand from
the ICC’s Special Rapporteur for Food Crimes regarding my use of
profanity in the charge related to the dipping sauce. It was not a
proud moment for me. But it did help me make the acquaintance of a
highly placed Papa John’s source.

After the ICC thing, my name was in the press for a while, which
was tough. My source, who has insisted that I call him “The Noid,”
got my name from a mocking editorial about me in Pizza
Marketplace Magazine, and reached out to me because he felt
“people don’t know the truth” about Schnatter and Papa John’s.
“This guy, everyone thinks he just spends his time invading the
homes of exurban white people, handing out pizzas and dispensing
those weird piston-y high-fives, like in the commercials,” he told
me during our first conversation. “It’s either that or they think
he spends all his time, like, scrutinizing green bell peppers to
see if they meet his exacting standards. And it’s true he spends a
lot of time staring at peppers, but there’s more to all this. He
can be cruel. People don’t know about that. The second tanning bed
in his office that he uses to ‘discipline’ executives. The way he
whips honey chipotle chicken strips at people for no reason. The
pranks, God. I have ‘Better Ingredients, Better Pizza’ tattooed on
my lower back, and I don’t have any idea how it got there, so
that’s barely even a prank, at least in my book.”

But those allegations, too, aren’t new. “The Noid” is still with
Papa John’s—he says that if he left, the repercussions for his
family would be “unimaginable, unspeakable—I’ve seen him make
people, kids even, actually eat the Spinach Alfredo pizza.” But he
has chosen to leak select memos from Papa John’s executive
headquarters—located a mile beneath the University of
Louisville’s Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium—because he thinks the
public needs to know the Papa John he knows.

“They don’t see the guy who makes these terrifying surprise
visits to different branches, and if you can’t name all the
ingredients on the John’s Favorite pie he’ll make you chug honey
mustard dipping sauce or put you on mushroom-inspection duty for a
week. People don’t know that guy. He’s not who everyone thinks. And
he’s very ambitious.”

It’s that last bit that matters here. Late on Sunday night, as
the sexual harassment allegations against Herman Cain first came to
light, The Noid called me. He was out of breath, although he often
is—”the healthiest thing you can get in the cafeteria is the
Grilled Chicken Club Pizza,” he told me once. This time seemed
different, though. “I’m sending you something big,” he said. “The
thing we talked about is happening. The big thing.” He had been
sending me information about “the big thing” for some time: Papa
John quietly retaining the services of Ed Rollins and Bay Buchanan
as consultants; his “fact-finding” visits to Iowa and New Hampshire
during the spring; the abrupt and combative tack to the right on
Israeli settlements in Papa John’s television advertising; the
forming of Pizza Party USA, a political action committee, last
June; the subsequent announcement of 501(c)4 Super-PAC called
Better Ingredients For America in September. The Noid had told me
for weeks that Cain would eventually self-destruct. “He’s a weird
guy,” Noid told me months ago, “by which I mean that when he was at
Godfather’s [Pizza] he appointed an old pizza box to the corporate
board and made everyone call it ‘Suzanne.'” Now, it seemed, Cain’s
inevitable collapse was happening. And, as The Noid had said for
months, Papa John was making his own run for President.

I will never forget the end of my last conversation with Noid.
“Shit, I have to go, I have to go,” he said Sunday night, “check
your email.” When he got off the phone, as he always did, by saying
“Better ingredients, better pizza,” his voice was small,
frightened. I could hear the weird, whooping laugh of Schnatter
himself—already familiar to me from his television commercials and
my nightmares—in the background. Below is a transcription of the
memo that The Noid sent me.

TO: [Redacted]CC: DKoch22@aol.com, MrCharlesKoch@earthlink.comFROM: Team Schnatter, Ed.Rollins@papajohnsusa.com,
Bay.Buchanan@papajohnsusa.comRE: THE TIME IS NOW

Executive Summary: Circumstances in the Republican
presidential campaign currently present a unique opportunity, with
the scandal currently surrounding Herman Cain opening the “pizza
hole” in the field. Candidate Schnatter polls strongly among
crucial demographics, has a pronounced messaging advantage, and
enjoys a significant imaging advantage as well. In short, THIS IS
OUR TIME.

Polling

Due to the unofficial nature of our campaign, early polling on
Candidate Schnatter has been limited—but very promising indeed.
Nationally, Schnatter is the most recognizable of any of the
current or potential Republican nominees; as discussed, even if
[Tom] Selleck opts to pursue the Republican nomination, Schnatter
remains a close second. Promisingly, 14 percent of likely voters
believe that Schnatter is already the President of the United
States, giving us a small but critical incumbency advantage.
Candidate Schnatter’s negatives are notable, but of the 47% of
voters who answered in the affirmative when asked, “Are you afraid
that Papa John is going to show up at your house with a dozen
rapidly cooling pizzas and a bunch of two-liters of Diet Coke, then
make you watch Conference USA football games and do lots of
high-fives?” nearly half said that their biggest concern was having
to watch Conference USA football, not high-five Candidate
Schnatter. The three phrases most commonly associated with
Candidate Schnatter were “weird nodding and unmotivated laughter in
his commercials,” “clammy-but-somehow-also-parched, couch-bound
indigestion” and “bold leadership.” In short, there’s a lot to work
with.

Messaging

Here is where we can really shine. Other candidates struggle to put
their beliefs into brief, catchy slogans. For example, Mitt
Romney’s current campaign slogan, “This Thing I Believe: The
Exceptionalism Of America And Its Unique Business Leader Community
And Job Creation Environment Which Is Under Assault Is Not
Something To Apologize For, At Home Or Abroad,” polls poorly among
English speakers; Newt Gingrich’s ” This Historical Thriller I
Co-Authored About What Would Have Happened Had The South Won The
Civil War Should Answer All Your Questions About My Views On
Muslims And Immigration,” to take another example, is just a
hyperlink leading to his author page on Amazon.com. Candidate
Schnatter, on the other hand, already has numerous successful
slogans, all of which can be easily “scaled” up into political
slogans—”At Papa John’s, It’s About Better Pizza” can easily become
“At Papa John’s, It’s About Better Pizza And Reducing Needless
Entitlement Spending And Freeing Our Job Creators From The Highest
Business Taxes In The Developed World,” for instance. “Nobody does
what Papa John’s does” scales easily into “Nobody does what Papa
John’s does… Which Is Let Small Business Owners Innovate, Without
Bureaucrats And Onerous Regulation Get In The Way.” Other
candidates’ messages can be absorbed and repurposed, as well. For
instance, Romney’s “No Apologies” becomes “Papa John Doesn’t
Apologize For Using 100% Real Premium Meats On His ‘The Meats’
Pizza, And He Won’t Apologize For American Greatness Abroad,
Either.”

The Ground Game

With thousands of franchises across the United States and hundreds
of “Pizza Consulates” in the United Kingdom, South Korea, Canada
and other major “pizz-allies,” Team Schnatter has a reach that no
other campaign can boast. Additionally, the Papa John’s franchises
in such Middle East nations as Oman, Bahrain, Qatar, Jordan and
Kuwait position Candidate Schnatter as the most experienced
foreign-policy hand in the Republican field—”I have been to the
Middle East, and I know that what they hunger for is the same
miserable, cheese-squelched pizzas that we enjoy here in The
Greatest Country In Human History,” for instance. “The total
destruction of our freedoms and way of life” can be substituted for
“miserable, cheese-squelched etc,” depending on the audience.

CONCLUSION: The “better ingredients” for a winning
campaign are all in place. Our task now is to make the “better
pizza” of a campaign that accurately and compelling communicates
Papa John’s exceptional values. The national “pizza hole” is open
as never before. It’s up to us to help Papa John shove a bunch of
hot garbage into it, and win.